So, the Ontario government released or introduced Bill 66 today in the Legislature. It does many appalling things under the guise of “opening Ontario for business”. It may open Ontario for business but it strips the public of protections for clean water, health and safety regulations for wastewater and food inspection can be bypassed, and many other things.

Check out this Twitter feed here for more details, but here’s an example of some of the overzealousness the Ford government is displaying in getting rid of “regulations”:

Bill 66 also scraps the Wireless Services Agreements Act, which requires cellphone providers to use contracts written in plain language and caps […]

I’m being slightly facetious.. but a big congrats to my cousin and cousin-in-law JP Danko and Dawn Danko for being elected to Hamilton City Council and School Trustee respectively. Dawn was just named vice chair of the Hamilton District School board as well. Everyone in the family is very proud of them.

A follow-up to my last post: The Ontario Conservative government has finally presented its plan for mitigating climate change. No carbon tax! No cap and trade!

Sounds great.. until you see the details:

“Rather than imposing a price on carbon pollution as a cost of doing business, the Tories are shifting the burden to taxpayers by making them subsidize big business. Instead of polluters paying up, polluters are being paid off with $400 million in corporate carbon welfare…”

Basically. .they’re modelling this plan on a similar plan from Australia, where another conservative government also balked at carbon pricing. The result there? Emissions have climbed at the fastest rate since 2004.

We have seen Conservative Governments in Ontario and Saskatchewan balk at carbon pricing and the Federal Conservatives basically trying to use the old “tax on everything line” they used with success against Stephane Dion’s Green Shift a decade ago, cancelling climate change fighting programs and/or failing to offer (viable) alternatives.

At the moment, the governing Federal Liberal Party’s climate change plan appears to give them both the moral high ground on fighting climate change, as well as a factor in popular support.

Two polls to point to to show this: Innovative Research published this poll on the Federal Liberal Carbon Tax (views in Ontario specifically) and highlighted it on Twitter. […]

It’s not a perfect deal, and there are some things in it I’m not totally happy about (ie the pharmaceutical companies getting 10 year patent protection on drugs vs the 8 years it had been), but given who was in the Oval Office, and given what we saved (Chapter 19 dispute resolution panels will still be in place and supply management is still intact, despite giving up some more market access), I think most Canadians will be relieved we got a deal signed and they’ll be able to live with this deal.

It is notable that Conservatives who were recruited to help the Trudeau government with this deal have […]

Of all the scenarios out there where I’d envision a provincial government in Ontario invoking or trying to invoke Section 33 of the Charter (the “notwithstanding clause”) to override court decisions based on the Charter… a situation involving a BIll that shrinks municipal government in Toronto wasnt in my top 100.

SO in one sense, I find it farcical Premier FOrd is using a sledgehammer from the Charter to push through what he wants the size of Toronto City COuncil to be. On the other hand, it shows (as he warns himself) that he will be willing to use it in far more serious matters of legislation.

So Ontario’s Environment Minister Rod Phillips met with Canadian Environment Minister Catherine Mckenna. Minister Phillips was rather defiant in his tweet about never accepting Canada’s carbon tax put on the province, while Minister Mckenna was much more diplomatic.

The bottom line is: Ontario had a cap and trade plan in place (not a carbon tax, as Ford and his government tries to keep misleading the public into equating the two as the same thing. They removed it.

Ford and his government supposedly believe climate change is real. If so, the Ford Conservative government has until September to come up with a climate change plan to reduce carbon that meets the […]

I don’t think I need to go into details again to my readers about Donald Trump’s antics at the G7, or him and his advisers basically equating Prime Minister Trudeau to the modern day equivalent of Benedict Arnold because horrors, publicly stating again that we disagree with and would be retaliating against US tariffs with our own somehow makes Trump look weaker to the North Koreans.

Instead, I’ll just post this here for folks who want to get Donald Trump’s attention the only way possible: at his bottom line.

Scott Gilmore of Macleans has a nice little list of everything Donald Trump or family owns or has a business connection […]